Saturday, December 15, 2007

Yes, I am updating. Not too much has been happening. I've been going to work, watching a lot of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 (and wishing that Odo and Keira would get together), finishing up Greg's blanket, and adoring Seth and Lily.

One cool thing: Missy taught me how to spin with a drop spindle last weekend! It's fabulously fun. I got so excited about it that I enrolled in an introductory class at Webs. I very must want to learn how to spin on a wheel. The class is a weekend at the end of January. I'll keep you posted.

Second cool think: More Lily pictures! My baby girl is getting so big. And curious. She likes to wander into the hall now. I always scoop her up and carry her back in. Tonight I did bring her up the stairs to look out the window in the stairwell. She liked that. She was looking back and forth at the new view of the outside.

Lily is sitting on the bookshelves in our office in all of these pictures. Since the shelves got organized and on got freed-up, it's been a new cool place to be.

Well, my tea, in my new triniTEA tea maker that Seth got my for Christmas, just beeped. Tea time - got to run!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

For those of you who were wondering, yes, I did finish the baby blanket in time for the shower, which I attended last Friday. Sorry I've been late getting these images up - I was running a two day Phonathon to call parents the last two nights. (It went very well. I even got to call for a bit!)

The pictures of the blanket are below. There is a close-up, of course.

Monday, November 19, 2007

I was thinking about that story *The Strand* that I wrote for my E355 class all last semester. I wanted to try something different in that theme - a short.

Waiting in Grey

She was beautiful bathed in the florescent light.

“You’re married,” she said. It wasn’t a question, although she had never asked before.

“Yes. I love her very much,” because nothing is ever so simple.

“I could never not love her,” he went on, “She holds my past. She shares my memories.”

She paused.

“You think I am being dramatic. You’ve never been married. That is what it is to be married. You become interwoven with another in memories.”

No one spoke the way he did. It was why she was in love with him. One of the reasons anyway.

“You read too much Henry James,” she said, in explanation, although she knew that wasn’t the case at all.

They were stalling notably and had been doing so for what seemed an infinite time.

How long can we wait in the grey? How long can we go with no decisions at all? She wanted him to be the adult and take charge. He wanted her to provide seduction, all the while not knowing if seduction was in her character. Did she even know if seduction was in her character? She was beautiful, giving her license for temptation, but she did not know guile and hurt, could not imagine the pain that would be caused if action occurred because in a breath he had said, “I love her very much.”

Still she did not have the naïveté of youth – she was old enough to be past that.

“Walk with me,” he said, needing motion, needing the clarity that might come from the hit of cold air as they exited.

A university if never vacant and dark in entirety, could manage to be vacant and dark enough. Her hat made her hair jut out wildly moving in him a pang of something not quite desire, not quite love. And while it was at this moment moving towards being something like love, something like kindness between them, it would never be lust because neither of them could imagine that far, confining themselves inadvertently to teacher/student roles that ought to have been abandoned. And no matter how many times she said it, his first name would always reverberate with a clang in her ears, filling in professor in her brain.

“You were in my dream last night,” he said, surprising her, sighing. This was, in its way, its own kind of cruelty. “I’m corrupting you,” he went on.

She laughed but gently.

“I’m not your prelapsarian Eve. You should know.”

He had not thought of it before. She had been somewhat of a girl in his mind. That she was not an innocent that he was corrupting gave him a relief, a freedom – he would not be ever taking advantage of her.

“It’s been complicated before,” she continued. “This is not the first thing that I have done that I know is wrong. I had not stopped loving him, you know. And the funny thing, the really funny thing was that I didn’t feel bad the way I thought I would. I thought it would kill me to see my boyfriend after what I had done, after those kisses and, well, it doesn’t matter. But it didn’t. It really didn’t. The guilt I felt was for not feeling guilty.”

Her soliloquy stopped him, greedily grabbed his air from him. The moment had weight. He carefully touch her cheek, watching her eyes briefly close in the creation of memory then focus back on his in uncertain want.

“These things don’t matter,” she said with assertion, “Anything before this – it doesn’t matter.” As if saying that made it true.

She moved with words, waiting for him to move with action.

He was uncertain, after the cold of her cheek under his palm, after her words.

“Come with me,” she said, taking his hand – astonishment in itself – bring him back the way they came, entering the front door of the building as if they had nothing to hide. And what is someone should see them?

The office door had been left unlocked.

“I had always thought that there was a moment when things became inevitable,” she said, “but that’s not it at all. Every kiss is a new and different choice, a different damnation.”

“You’re not who I expected you to be.”

She let him kiss her then, which he did in the softest of touches, watching her eyes again close, thinking, “Now there is memory between us too.”

She was still cold from the outside, and he wrapped her in his coat, watch her hunker down into the fabric which cascaded down her, miniaturizing her, making her a girl again.

Monday, November 12, 2007

Today was Seth and my two year anniversary. We had the day off. We had lots of fun. We gave each other cool cards. I made Seth breakfast in bed. We saw Across the Universe. For dinner, we went to this place we had never been in South Deerfield - Wolfie's. It has basic, good food.

I just took a bath. Seth put so many bubbles in that the tub is still full.

Also, in case you think, "Gee, I haven't seen a picture of Lily in a while..." Here are a couple of pictures of Lily. She is getting so big! She looks absolutely beautiful. Her winter coat is coming in and she is super fluffy. I have been brushing her. She likes to sit in the bottom draw in the kitchen where we store bags and be brushed. Right no she is cleaning herself on my desk. Adorable!

Also, pretty cute: There are pictures of pigs on the Yarn Harlot's blog. Click on that link and press page down 5 and a half times. See that really fat pig with no eyes! Oooooh!

P.S. The baby blanket for Kim is finished! I'll take a picture soon, but I have it packed away at the moment.

Sunday, November 4, 2007

My co-worker, Kim, is having a baby girl. This is not new news. In fact, as long as I have known Kim she has been pregnant (leaving it difficult for me to imagine her in any other state - but that is another matter). As Kim is quite a lovely co-worker, I told her that I would make her a blanket for her soon to arrive daughter. I told her this months ago, and then did nothing. After all, the baby isn't due until January, which is far off enough that I thought I didn't need to do anything other than buy the yarn (sage colored) that was needed.

Then Tuesday arrived. I got to work and found in the box on my door and invitation. To a baby shower. For Kim. On.... November 16!!!

This leaves me with approximately two weeks to finish the baby blanket, which was only started on Halloween. I'm moving as fast as possible and have finished a quarter of it. This puts me in good shape to finish in time. I'll keep you posted as to my progress.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Sorry I haven't posted for a while. I have been working daily at the Phonathon here at Smith. The good news is that it's going very well. I'll write more in November when the Phonathon is over and I have my weekends back.

Sunday, October 14, 2007

On I-84, right before exit 32, Volkie, my VW Beetle, suffered a malfunction. Thursday night, I was traveling home to visit with my father and spend my mother's birthday with my Mom. I was cruising along at a speed that would get me home expeditiously without violating traffic law. I was happily listening to an audio book, Rise and Shine (rather vapid but entertaining), when the temperature gauge on the Volkie's control panel turned red. This alone would have been alarming enough - red being an alarming color - and would have prompted me to stop. That being said, the car's manufacturer disagreed. Volkie began beeping loudly. A loud beep is rather unnerving and, in conjunction with a red light, more alarming than I feel necessary, especially considering how alarming car difficulties are by nature.

I digress.

Needless to say, Volkie had to be taken off the highway, and AAA had to be called. Volkie was towed to Plainville, Connecticut. (Who has ever heard of Plainville? Although according to the town's website it is "the geographic center and crossroads of Connecticut." Clearly not for me.)

Just shy of $700 later and outfitted with a new water pump, thermostat, and timing belt - the latter of which I was going to have replaced at a slightly later date - Volkie is back on the go.

Saturday, October 6, 2007

Last night I attended a wrestling show. David, friend and former roommate, has recently been attending wrestling school. As it would so happen, his teacher was going to be wrestling at a 'pro' wrestling show that would be taking place at the Mullin's Center (at UMass). And additionally, as it would so happen, the Advocate, where David works, was sponsoring the show. This meant that David could get us all free tickets and we would not have to travel to get to the event.

While I was residing with David (and Seth of course) at Rolling Green, wrestling would grace our TV at least two nights a week. Sometimes I opted out of this activity, but other times, in an effort to be social, I would watch the program in question. While I watched I always knitted.

The fact that I was going to be watching wrestling live did not deter me from wanting to knit. Clearly, wrestling was a knitting related event. For me at least there was always a 1:1 correlation. The only thing I changed when knitting to live instead of televised wrestling was the project. I worked on knitting my sock instead of Greg's blanket. After all, it is easier to get a sock into your bag and thus into the Mullin's Center.

I spent the better part of last night no more than 30 feet away from men grappling violently in a wrestling ring K2P2-ing to my hearts content!

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Yesterday was (Seth's sister) Sheila and Gary's wedding. We all had quite an excellent time. As I had not been to a wedding since my cousin got married when I was in single digits, this was a good opportunity to have a wedding experience.

The ceremony was at Smith College, as Seth's sister is an alumna. It was nice to see the inside of the Helen Hills Hills Chapel, as I have walked past it so many times. There was a nice gathering for the wedding - not too few people and not too many.

After the ceremony there was picture taking in the gardens at Smith. Seth, as the best man, was also the chauffeur for the bride and the groom, so we got to attend the post-marriage picture taking in route to the reception. The photographer was very nice and took a picture of Seth and me in the garden as well.

The reception was at the Yankee Peddler in Holyoke - fun time. Seth got to do his toast early on in the evening, which was good as he was worried about it. I don't know why. It was most definitely the best toast ever given at any event in the history of the world. The content and delivery were most excellent.

After that there was a nice dinner. I had beef. Seth had chicken. We were seated with Seth's brother, Sean, his wife, Missy, and their son, Matthew, so we had lovely company for the meal. After dinner there was dancing! Seth and I did a good deal of dancing. As the best man, he had to do the first couples dance. Usually, as I understand it, the best man and the maid / matron on honor dance. Because the matron of honor was (naturally) married, she danced the first dance with her husband and I got to dance with Seth. Here we are.

Doesn't Seth look very handsome in his tux! Of course, he is very handsome all of the time. Still he looks nice.

And we quite certainly danced the night away! Here we are again. (I am wearing a sweater because it was so cold!)

And that was about it. Dancing and fun and then home for bed. I have to wrap this up quickly because it appears (rather smells) like the cat's litter box should be cleaned. (Oh, Lily!)

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Here it's the same old, same old. Work, tea, evenings, Hoober, knitting, playing with Lily. How ever I do have exciting pictures below!

Finally finished, the striped sweater! I made it and Mom, hero that she is, assembled it (shudder!). It is completely wearable and ready to go.

And, of course, a close up. This sweater was knit with sports weight cotton on US 4 needles.

Below, Greg's still in progress blanket is making moves towards the half way mark. Knitting a blanket on US 10 needles is a forever project. Good thing I am enjoying it - makes a very good DS9 watching project. I am using Bernat Softee Chunky in Circus, a variegated. I love the yarn. Who says acrylic isn't nice? Oh, and I'll be picking up stitches on the sides to continue that great border on the bottom all of the way around.

And, of course, a close up.

Also, in progress, my first sock. It's being knit on US5 circulars - two of them in fact using a sport weight yarn. I am still working on the leg part. It's a K2, P2 basic rib for 6 inches. I am moving along slowly with this but looking forward to the exciting turning the heel part coming up... eventually.

Because I am talking about knitting, I will show Lily playing. I got her these balls with rattles in them. They look like tiny yarn balls. She likes to play with them if I pull them along on a piece of yarn.

Clearly that situation escalated. She does get going.

Good news: Dad is coming up to visit tonight, and we're going to go over to my office at Smith. (I have permission to be there.) While we're there I will take some pictures to post so you can see where I spend 35 hours of my week.

Monday, September 10, 2007

This weekend, I worked the Volunteer Conference at Smith. A good time but exhausting. There was a keynote speech about the different generations: Mature, Boomers, Generation X, Generation Y (my generation), and the Millennials. Very interesting. One of the things that we Gen Y folks are supposed to do is talk with our parents all the time. Of course, after I heard that I did the only thing I could do. Call my mom. And then tell my dad when I talked with him last night.

Tonight continues the week of work craziness. Tonight is the first time I'll be in the Phonathon Center to officially manage a session. We're having our annual Thankathon in which we call alumnae and thank them for their past year's gifts. I am super excited (although still a bit tired from the Conference). I'll try to keep you posted about how the Thankathon goes. If I have time, as this upcoming weekend I am going to Connecticut and then coming back here to attend part of the Student Leadership Conference at Smith on Sunday.

And Seth has been most helpful during all this. He made me the most fabulous dinner last night! (It was a surprise and wonderful!) He even made an ice cream cake with funfetti cake, cookie dough ice cream, and frosting. Oh, I could do with a piece right now. There was yummy roast beef (that Mom bought us when we moved in), potatoes, and carrots. I am going to heat some of that food up for dinner in about an hour before I head back to Smith.

Also, Lily is doing wonderfully and is quite healthy, her spaying not setting her back in the least. I am enjoying being home with her this afternoon. She has been quite sweet, having me pet her and purring. She's a bit more rambunctious in the evening, as would be expected.

Goodness, I am getting tired. No! I can't; I have to work until 9.30. Maybe I just need some tea.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Lily is going to the vet tomorrow to be spayed (and also for her shots: rabies, feline distemper, and for micro-chipping, just in case). I am terribly worried, which is ridiculous because these people know what they are doing, and I know, logically if not emotionally, that she will be fine and perfectly healthy. Still, after my darling boy William, it is difficult not to be concerned. I'm working on it.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Some people go through their entire lives never feeling love this deeply. Funny how the time goes. People say, when you're in love, that time slows down or speeds up. Time always seems to be doing funny things in these varied renditions. Watching the tape -- watching her -- it wasn't like that at all. Time was the way that time always is, consistent, marking down the seconds in linear fashion as I didn't think of what to say next.

The air outside the apartment is cold, and I vacillate. There are defining moments that you can recognize -- I am trapped in self awareness, turning circles on the concrete, and feeling the air burn down my esophagus, move cleanly through my nose, trickle down the open sides of my collar. I am trying to locate myself in the physical world, out of the mental, which churns not understanding how everything quickly towards entropy.

And, if she had never been Peter's (or her own) I still would have wanted her for mine, that I know. This is not a case of jealousy or misplaced affections. If I had only seen her in passing the result would have been the same. Wait, I take that back; how can I know what I would be in other realities that I have never experienced? All I know is this turmoil that I try so hard to quell, this secret that is bust wide open. And what to do what to do -- there is nothing to be done.

I don't kid myself into thinking that I am lucky for loving, for having this depth and strength of feeling. Unrequited love is the most romanced of all. Like so many others, I dwell on what is never mine to have. The sweetness is that it will never grow old. How can the actual compete with the imagined? The daily realities can never compare with these perfections our minds create. It is the ephemeral. It is that which can not be grasped that will forever rattle around in our consciousness. We can not have good days, bad days, anything that will taint the image.

I am rationalizing to save myself. What can I do now? Isn't that the real question. My most private thoughts, hidden for all our sakes, have been blasted on the screen in Technicolor, overly dramatized, too clear to be denied. It is not to be pursued, and I will not apologize for it. This walk in the cold in not contrition. People do not apologize for loving others.

And if there is a tightness in me not derived from the cold but from you, I can distract myself ever so briefly by the tactile as I run my palm over this curve of concrete. There is nothing to do now but walk and not think of what comes next.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

I haven't posted for a while. I have been busy. Busy with things that are NEW!

New #1: My job.

I have not written about New #1 yet. Not at length anyway. Although New #1 tried to make at least a brief referential appearance in the August 4th post.

Here is the deal (and I am telling you "the deal" as I sit in my office, during my lunch break [How exciting! I have never had an office or a lunch break!]): my cool job supervising at the Annual Fund at UMass got me this cool job running the Phonathon at Smith College. More specifically, I will be responsible for: managing the phone program(!), the Senior Appreciation Program, and the ten most recent graduated classes. I have been doing mega outlining and planning and learning (mostly the latter) in the past two and a half weeks I have been here. I am enjoying everything immensely. I am even enjoying the difficult things like trying to figure out how to roll my ING retirement account from UMass into my Pax World 413(b) account here at Smith. And, of course, trying to figure why someone who is twenty-two needs a retirement account in the first place. (Although, I suppose one day I might not be in my twenties anymore....perhaps.) My co-workers are extremely nice and extremely helpful, making me extremely grateful. If, in the future, I am ever the one with the experience I will try my best to help "the new guy" the way everyone here has helped me.

New #2: Lily!

We have a (new, obviously) cat. Her name is Lily. She is as sweet as that also new yellow cake flavored ice cream with frosting and sprinkles. We were gifted Lily by Sean and Missy, Seth's brother and sister-in-law who, with a seventeen-month-old son, were already busy enough. They found her in Greenfield all by her lonesome, which is a bad way for a half-year-old cat to be. Don't worry though; she's as healthy as can be. After William getting so sick, I took Lily to the vet her second day with us. A traumatizing experience for the both of us but also a necessary one.

Lily being older than William was is a bit more calmer although she also likes to play. She enjoys: feet (which she will lick and wrap her paws around to hold in place for more licking), sleeping on our bed with us at night, lying in windows at all times of the day, the red feather on the end of her teaser toy, drinking water out of my glass instead of her water bowl, and other cat like behavior.

I have not taken Lily's picture yet. After all, she is (remember) new. Even newer than the job. She is this Sunday new (aka. five days new). But I will take lots of pictures because she is very beautiful (Tiger pattern but darker than Tom and William's. Medium hair yielding a fluffy face and magnificent tail.). And I will be sure to post the aforementioned pictures.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Saturday, August 4, 2007

I never would have thought, stepping foot on the UMass campus, a young girl from a small town overwhelmed by magnitude, that this is how things would end up - that a place that I had thought of with a certain disregard would one day become thought of with pride as a home.

One day, turning my car towards the Central living area, held rapt by the massive buildings, all viable from University Drive,it hit me with such force as to almost make me cry that this place, this mega-university was a place I loved greatly, a place I would miss.

___

I never would have thought, coming to UMass with notions of a degree in astronomy, that I would end up graduating with a B.A. in English and a desire to work in Advancement. I could have imagined graduate school in astronomy at an East-coast school with stone buildings. (In my youth, every college was to me Yale.) I could have even imagined, late, and if I stretched myself, working in publishing because I was (and am) a lover of books (literature) and creating the written word.

___

I did not imagine, when I first descended the unkempt steps towards the basement of Memorial Hall to begin my job as a caller at the Annual Fund located there, that I would in the course of this one job fine a career and a sort of extended family in the staff of the Annual Fund, people that even now I am loath to leave.

___

Cliché as the phrase now is, John Lennon was right: Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Thursday, July 26, 2007

The yarn for Greg's blanket came today. I am doing a pattern I found online called Twisted Texture Afghan by Bernat. This marks the first time that I have ever ordered yarn over the internet. But it's okay - I got free shipping.

I was worried that they wouldn't send all the same dye lot and that I would be forsaken forever, but fortunately the people at JoAnn know what they are doing. Fourteen (exactly, fourteen, although I am now thinking I should have ordered extra yarn...) skeins of Bernat Softee Chunky yarn in Circus arrived via the United Parcel Service at approximately 3.30 pm, while I was doing my abs workout with Denise Austin. I do not mind working with acrylic, and I think that this yarn is quite lovely.

I began the blanket with gusto! This is optimistic, since I am always afraid of beginning a new project (oh, the mistakes!). Lucky the blanket was going along fine, until I realized that the "tension" was off.

First off, the pattern is Canadian, hence tension instead of gauge. Second, the gauge offered was for the pattern, not the border, which is what I am working on now. Lastly, I don't usually check the gauge since I work with the no dye lot Red Heart Super Saver for almost all of my blankets (because it's cheap and with a blanket you need a lot of yarn). With the Red Heart, if I have to run out to the store for another skein, who cares. But not this time. This time the pattern I have calls for fourteen skeins of yarn, and I didn't buy extra. I hope this isn't a mistake.

Well, as it would so happen I did work up a swatch of the main pattern, and the "tension" is just different than the "tension" in the boarder. Whew. So, I should be okay. And, if not, the blanket can always be a different length because it is a blanket after all.

(And this blanket allowed me the first chance to use my new Denise Interchangeable set that Mom got me for a graduation gift. I am quite enjoying them now, although I almost broke my thumb trying to attach two pieces of cord with the connector. - I don't think I was turning it correctly. - But the needles and cord are together, the needles are light, and the yarn moves smoothly. What a great set!)

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

I was thinking about how I had briefly intended for this blog to have a knitting focus. Obviously, that didn't happen. However, I thought I would take the opportunity to post pictures of some of the blankets I have made.

So far I have made five blankets: one for Seth's nephew, Matthew; one for myself; one for my mother; one for Seth's mother; and one for Mom's friends upcoming baby. Actually, the final blanket on the list isn't done yet - it should be by the end of the week.

I have pictures of all of the blankets except Matthew's and Mom's. I think I might ask the owners for images.

Below I have normal images and close-ups of all of the new baby blanket, Seth's mother's blanket, and my blanket.